Facile Detection of Vitamin B12 with Copper Oxide Nanocrystal Graphenic Composite Electrode

Abstract

Vitamin B12 (VB12) is applied as the cofactors in various important enzymatic reactions and is involved in gene expression regulation mediated by B12-riboswitch and the VB12-dependent photoreceptor. Rapid detection VB12 concertation in a given environment may provide insights in the evaluation of micronutrient levels and the physiological and ecological performances of organisms under the relevant condition. This study demonstrating an amperometric approach to quantify the VB12 in biological samples without complicated sample pretreatment. The electrochemical oxidation step was conducted with a plain graphenic electrode to convert all nitrogen groups within the VB12 molecules to NO3− at 1.3 V vs. Ag/AgCl for 15 min. VB12 was quantified stoichiometrically according to the oxidized nitrate anions, which were reduced with copper oxide nanocrystal decorated graphenic electrode. Cathodic polarization was conducted with a graphite rod electrode before nitrate reduction to eliminate the potential interferences. Under optimized experimental conditions, the presented approach gave a wide detection linear range of 0.15–7378 nmol L−1 and the detection limit was 0.59 nmol L−1. The results for biological samples were comparable to those of the HPLC method. These results indicated that successively combined anodic and cathodic polarization enhanced the detection sensitivity and efficiency of the electrode towards VB12. The proposed electrode shows potential in terms of efficiency, reliability and accuracy for rapid determination of VB12 in biological samples.